I've studied Bruce B's nose softening technique, but have not used it to date. Scanning through other pages I come across this from Paco Kelly,
"Here’s a trick I write about often...to get soft nose and hard body cast bullets, cast them hard and hot, frosty bullets are better no matter what the experts say... drop them from the mold into water to temper....then place your bullets standing in water to their shoulder just above the top crimp groove, so the nose is exposed....take a butane torch and run it over the noses sticking out of the water...this detempers just the noses, so you in effect have a soft nose-hard body, cast bullet. It takes a little practice...but as soon as you see the bullet noses change color at all, pull the flame...or the nose will slump over...it doesn’t take much flame time, especially on small caliber bullets. Cast bullets made this way will resist fouling but will expand in any size animal....from rabbits on up."
From all my years of toying around with lead this is the first time I've seen this described. If this is good then I can 'anneal' so to speak, the noses of certain round nose boolits to achieve the mushroom effect. Will need to try it out with the proper medium before using that on game, though.
Anyone else ever utilize this technique with good success?